Curse of Strahd.

[rob2e]

Fantasy Grounds Module

Prepared by:
TASagent

Edited by:
Zacchaeus

Well done fellas! Super excited!

[gqwebb]

Big bump! Thanks for all the pins!

[drakonin]

Awesome work! Any way to shift the grid to fit the isometric castle maps?

[Calisto]

I also bought CoS today, amazing work! I do have a similar question on the isometric maps, I don't see how to really use these as tactical battle maps. Does anyone know if there are top down battle maps out there anywhere for Castle Ravenloft? What are others thinking of doing when running combat for their players in the castle?

[opticalshadow]

I also bought CoS today, amazing work! I do have a similar question on the isometric maps, I don't see how to really use these as tactical battle maps. Does anyone know if there are top down battle maps out there anywhere for Castle Ravenloft? What are others thinking of doing when running combat for their players in the castle?

the way we did it in the orginal was use iso for the exploration and if you use maps for battle, use some drawn up maps

[Zacchaeus]

The maps are what they are. And in fact they weren't even player maps until DD did some magic work on them with whatever he did the magic with.

[ddavison]

Yes, the castle maps are not usable as tactical maps. Believe me, we tried to un-iso them but they were actually artist rendered iso maps and not top-down maps that had been converted to isometric and therefore we were not able to reverse the process.

[Mask_of_winter]

It isn't the exact same castle but may I suggest taking a look at Frank Turfler's page here. He's been releasing a level of Bran Castle maps every week for free: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bran-keep-4546412
It's a possible alternative to those with a bit of imagination.
And knowing him, with enough requests and if he gets paid he probably would make top down versions as well.

[drakonin]

Yeah I think the work around is use two token on the ISO maps one for party one for Monsters and then a plain castle floor map for the battles.

[Mellock]

There's also sites like cartographersguild and rpgmapshare. While preparing some 4e adventures, I came across a lot of re-imagined maps for existing adventures there. A lot of DM-only maps that had been remade for PC use. I'd keep an eye out for any un-iso'd Curse of Strahd maps popping up there as well.

[Calisto]

Yeah I think the work around is use two token on the ISO maps one for party one for Monsters and then a plain castle floor map for the battles.

That's a reasonable approach drakonin, I may go that route but I am going to an eye out for 2D maps from fans or wotc in the future. At the rate my group and I play it will be quite awhile before we hit the castle.

[hawkwind]

There are 2d maps of the original Castle in I6 published years ago in the Hackmaster version called'' Robins nest. ''. If the castle is still the same you could use them, good luck finding a copy though as the muffle was withdrawn from sale years ago

[hawkwind]

Or this even better from the third edition version https://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20061031a

[drakonin]

There are 2d maps of the original Castle in I6 published years ago in the Hackmaster version called'' Robins nest. ''. If the castle is still the same you could use them, good luck finding a copy though as the muffle was withdrawn from sale years ago

You can get the paperback from amazon, I found zero legit places to buy the PDF though.

[FSHSchmo]

The Graystone Castle (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.xcp?id=AKMAPGC1FG2) map pack also has some nice castle maps.

[Trenloe]

And 0OneGames have some nice old-school style maps: https://0onegames.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=38&products_id=376

[hawkwind]

https://www.fraternityofshadows.com/GryphonHill/barovia/castleravenloft.html


https://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=13943

[demonsbane]

Cool map resources.

[sturtus]

These are great finds. The cartographer's guild one looks most ready to use for FG.

[opticalshadow]

trying to plan out a schedule, how long do you think it would take to run this campaign starting at death house (lvl1). ball park figures for both newbies or vets, i know it can varry a bit, id be running campaign as print.

[drakonin]

trying to plan out a schedule, how long do you think it would take to run this campaign starting at death house (lvl1). ball park figures for both newbies or vets, i know it can varry a bit, id be running campaign as print.

That depends on too many things to even ball park it, best thing you can do is setup a day/time each week/month etc and keep playing until either people stop showing up or you finish the campaign :)

[iotech]

Amazon has the full hardcover Curse of Strahd for 40% off right now ($29.95 US). That's a smokin deal.

[TASagent]

I'm glad people like it :-)

Pay special attention to the Card Reading table output. I'm particularly proud of that one. It started off as a hack (I was kind of exploting some unsanitized XML output), but Moon Wizard was a badass and managed to implement some true support for my formatting pipe-dream, and in mere minutes. Sending Kudos his way.

[Koreapsu]

Please adventure conversion so far. Love it, great job.

[Trenloe]

Pay special attention to the Card Reading table output. I'm particularly proud of that one. It started off as a hack (I was kind of exploting some unsanitized XML output), but Moon Wizard was a badass and managed to implement some true support for my formatting pipe-dream, and in mere minutes. Sending Kudos his way.
Oooohhh, screenshots please!

Can it be used with the Basic Card Table extension (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?23099-Basic-Card-Tables-Extensions)or is there some other wizardry (moon wizardry) going on?

[Mask_of_winter]

It's very well done indeed. It outputs as a story entry and separates each linked card draw with some text and chat bubbles.

[drakonin]

For GMs with minor spoilers.

So which hooks are you using to get players into Barovia? I am leaning towards werewolf hunters but I don't like the fact they don't actually come into play until level 6 or so and after many many distractions. Which leads me to thinking I will have them show up earlier then written, maybe a few battered ones that just got into a fight with some undead or something.

Also @ TASagent you really outdid your self with all the map points and the quick links on each story page, very awesome and useful.

[gqwebb]

And yes Doug adding the ability to export to story and the card draw perfect match. Absolutely a GREAT JOB! Thanks again.

[FSHSchmo]

For GMs with minor spoilers.

So which hooks are you using to get players into Barovia? I am leaning towards werewolf hunters but I don't like the fact they don't actually come into play until level 6 or so and after many many distractions. Which leads me to thinking I will have them show up earlier then written, maybe a few battered ones that just got into a fight with some undead or something.

Also @ TASagent you really outdid your self with all the map points and the quick links on each story page, very awesome and useful.

I am actually planning on doing two of them combined. The plea for help and when they are on the road and camp out the mist will take them at their campsite.

[Calisto]

wthrasherb from Campaign Cartographers Guild is remaking earlier Ravenloft tactical battle maps for Curse of Strahd. Looks like he still has a way to go but great progress so far. Have a look and provide encouragement and feedback!

https://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=33438

[Zacchaeus]

Nice, will certainly be keeping an eye on this.

[Dennis Archer]

Just read this thread. Thanks for the work-around suggestions, on what is essentially an incomplete product (how could they have neglected to produce battle maps for the castle, even as a separate purchase?!). I hope that's not a recurring theme here at FG.

[Zacchaeus]

Just read this thread. Thanks for the work-around suggestions, on what is essentially an incomplete product (how could they have neglected to produce battle maps for the castle, even as a separate purchase?!). I hope that's not a recurring theme here at FG.
Remember that the FG version is a reproduction of what comes in the paper version. Additional material such as battlemaps needs someone to create them which takes a considerable amount of time and effort.

[ddavison]

Zacchaeus is correct. Nearly all of our products are basically 1:1 conversions of what you would get in print but on steroids. We make that content look and function as well as possible, but we don't look for any missing tokens, maps or artwork that may have been nice to have in the original product. There is an entire market that has sprung up to produce maps and tokens for digital products, just like there has been a big increase in people producing physical miniatures and terrain for the physical game.

[Dennis Archer]

Remember that the FG version is a reproduction of what comes in the paper version. Additional material such as battlemaps needs someone to create them which takes a considerable amount of time and effort.

Well, one isn't just buying a pdf of a published adventure. Those are much cheaper, and may be had at places like drivethrurpg.com. No, for a site like FG, where actual gaming takes place, battlemaps and tokens are needed. That's the draw, isn't it? To have the published adventure ready to go, with minimal set up on the part of the DM (almost word-for-word, part of the FG sales pitch)? The person or persons who create those things work for FG in some capacity, do they not? Speaking as a businessman, a product isn't (and shouldn't be) ready until it's ready. If I'm not mistaken, Curse of Strahd does come with some tokens and battle maps. My only observation is that it doesn't come with all the battle maps a DM needs (arguably, the most vital and important ones!). WotC has the maps, and FG is partnered with them, so how difficult is it to get them - especially when versions of them have been available on their website since v3.5? The creation of the product is reflected in the selling price. The production time is what it is, and it's not an issue unless FG has to race to beat a competitor to the punch, which they don't. At twice the price of the other hot selling adventure featured on the splash page, Curse of Strahd should come with everything that's needed, shouldn't it? Honestly, If I wanted to buy a pdf and then dismantle it so I can translate it onto a server, I'd still be over at roll20. I'm not trying to hold any animus against nor throw shade at FG; I just have a legitimate concern about how complete and ready to go these products truly are. It's the equivalent of buying a deck of playing cards for double the price, and then finding out that the jokers are missing, because special colors were used in their production, so one has to find them elsewhere.

[Teknykk]

You get what you pay for with these products: a conversion, nothing more, nothing less...though they are usually cheaper than the physical books, even for Australians who pay bloated prices for both digital software and physical gaming books like D&D. That said, normally someone like Zacchaeus does up a map pack for new adventures sometime after they release, and I'm currently eyeing his name off here in this thread, hoping that at some point he will do Castle Ravenloft maps, because his maps are amazing when they're done for published adventures, but also because it'd give DMs a slight headache if he didn't and force us to use generic drawing to do the most important place in the adventure.

So keep in mind, I doubt he or someone else hasn't thought about it, and they might be being done now or at some point in the near future - and they will be freely given and downloadable like all of the others. Just show a little patience and you never know, they might just appear someday soon.

[Dennis Archer]

Zacchaeus is correct. Nearly all of our products are basically 1:1 conversions of what you would get in print but on steroids. We make that content look and function as well as possible, but we don't look for any missing tokens, maps or artwork that may have been nice to have in the original product. There is an entire market that has sprung up to produce maps and tokens for digital products, just like there has been a big increase in people producing physical miniatures and terrain for the physical game.

I get what you're saying, but most published adventures don't include tokens and battle maps, so to include any at all means that the capacity to include exactly what's needed to run said adventure on FG is possible. FG outsources the creation of extras at no cost because that's just good business strategy. I agree 100%. However, in this case, I don't see the maps of the major focal point of the adventure as an extra. Battle maps and tokens of the lands beyond Barovia, for example, are the sort of things I'd fully expect to have to look for from a third party, but not Castle Ravenloft and it's denizens. Perhaps I'm the only one who finds their absence a disappointment.

If I might make a suggestion: Why not take the maps from the WotC website and have one of your knowledgeable interns turn them into battle maps, then offer them as an add-on product?

[Teknykk]

You're not the only one who finds it a disappointment, I found it extremely so - but this is how it was in the published physical adventure also, so I understood why it wasn't in the Fantasy Grounds module - there simply is no top down maps for Castle Ravenloft, unlike the rest of the areas. Many of the guys here who do the conversions may not even be paid for what they do either, so they tend to stick to direct conversions and only add in things if truly required and won't need a huge amount of effort. Much of the content provided is done by the community on their own clock, and often stolen from their own free time, and this is especially the case for custom map packs.

That said, there is the isometric maps in there, so it is very much my hope that a free custom map pack is done up by one of these gracious community content creators and put this matter to rest for all of us fledgling dungeon masters.

[Dennis Archer]

You get what you pay for with these products: a conversion, nothing more, nothing less...though they are usually cheaper than the physical books, even for Australians who pay bloated prices for both digital software and physical gaming books like D&D. That said, normally someone like Zacchaeus does up a map pack for new adventures sometime after they release, and I'm currently eyeing his name off here in this thread, hoping that at some point he will do Castle Ravenloft maps, because his maps are amazing when they're done for published adventures, but also because it'd give DMs a slight headache if he didn't and force us to use generic drawing to do the most important place in the adventure.

So keep in mind, I doubt he or someone else hasn't thought about it, and they might be being done now or at some point in the near future - and they will be freely given and downloadable like all of the others. Just show a little patience and you never know, they might just appear someday soon.

A straight conversion you say? I have the Curse of Strahd hardcover right here on my desk. Now, since I've been having trouble with the FG/paypal interface these past couple of days, I haven't been able to purchase the FG version yet. So, as a brief disclaimer: I don't know what it comes with. Here's what the product blurb says it comes with:

This Module Includes

the entire contents of Curse of Strahd adventure
image handouts that can be shared with players collectively or individually
maps containing information for the Dungeon Master (DM) only and with all locations pre-linked to story entries which may contain additional DM notes, boxed text, encounters, images and treasure parcels
maps with all hidden information removed and resized for use as tactical combat maps. * The maps of the interior of Castle Ravenloft are presented in an isometric format that won't align with a typical top-down map format.
tokens for many of the monsters in the module. When no token is available, a letter token is used to represent the NPC
XP for encounters that can be dragged to the party sheet and awarded to the players as they complete them
Searchable monster indexes by CR, type and in alphabetical order


The first line alone would be a straight conversion. So, we're not talking about a straight conversion, because the product comes with a lot more than that. Tokens, for example, have been provided, where they could be found, as have battle maps been created from regular maps. My hardcover doesn't have those things. Instead, it has regular maps and creature stats, with some artwork. I don't want to repeat myself from other replies, but the non-isometric maps for Castle Ravenloft were not hard to find, and if anyone should be able to capitalize upon them, I'd think it'd be FG. It just seems like an oversight that they weren't plundered and included in the finished product.

As for the forum's volunteer cartographer-in-chief? I'd be delighted to see some decent Castle Ravenloft battle maps appear at some point. If I knew anything about the software used to make the things, I'd do it myself. Since I cannot, I'll be his cheerleader.

[TASagent]

Don't want anyone to be misled about the conversions - creators of content sold by Smiteworks (eg my conversion of Curse of Strahd) are indeed compensated with a portion of the sales.

I always try to offer the most ideally prepared version of all of the materials I have to work with. Usually that includes hacking apart the artist's photoshop files in order to create a sufficient Player's version (typically where none existed). That often also includes copying over art from some of the other manuals so that official art can be used for monsters (for example) as much as possible. But I am not an artist, nor did people come here to purchase "TASagent's interpretation" of the adventure, so I stick as much as possible to the actual source material. I was disappointed as well by the sole inclusion of the hand-drawn orthographic maps for the castle. They look lovely. However, I tried using some photoshop trickery to undo the projection, but since the lines are neither straight nor parallel, the result simply wasn't usable. As it was, Doug lent a hand with the editing to create the Player's versions of the castle maps, since they generally only existed as a single layer.

EDIT: Said in reply to Teknykk, not Dennis Archer, whose reply appeared while I was composing mine.

[Dennis Archer]

You're not the only one who finds it a disappointment, I found it extremely so - but this is how it was in the published physical adventure also, so I understood why it wasn't in the Fantasy Grounds module - there simply is no top down maps for Castle Ravenloft, unlike the rest of the areas. Many of the guys here who do the conversions may not even be paid for what they do either, so they tend to stick to direct conversions and only add in things if truly required and won't need a huge amount of effort. Much of the content provided is done by the community on their own clock, and often stolen from their own free time, and this is especially the case for custom map packs.

That said, there is the isometric maps in there, so it is very much my hope that a free custom map pack is done up by one of these gracious community content creators and put this matter to rest for all of us fledgling dungeon masters.

Well, I'm glad that I'm not the only one :)

I guess I'm just not as forgiving as I once was. I guess that comes with age. When I read the reviews of FG on other sites, I didn't think of it as a place to buy a pricey pdf of an adventure. I thought of it as a site where I could game with friends and (more importantly) take less time to prepare than I would over at roll20. People made it sound like one could just buy an adventure and then run it as is. With no battle maps for the good castle though, that becomes problematic. So, I didn't expect that the product would be presented like that. I mean the non-isometric images are readily available on WotC's website, so it's not as if anyone would have to do them from scratch. I'm okay with the isometric map conversion coming later, though. If that's how it's got to be, then so be it.

[damned]

Can someone link to the top down maps?

[ddavison]

The tokens and the player maps are sourced from the several GB of data that the publisher sends us for each product. If the publisher sells the product in PDF, then we sell it at the same price, unless the publisher asks us to sell it at a higher price. Curse of Strahd is not available in PDF at any price. You *can* buy digital maps from several of the different artists that were included in the product. These will be higher resolution but not optimized for online play and often will reflect slightly different edits than what we have done. To suggest that we sell our products at a cost significantly inflated from PDF is wrong. To compare the FG version with what you get from a PDF is also incorrect.

People are referencing maps of the castle from earlier editions. I don't know if these match with the story or not. When we asked for top-down maps for them, we were told there were none. One that is similar but from an earlier edition probably won't work and fit with the story. Similarly, there are some modules with sections that have no map what-so-ever and these were meant to run in a theater of the mind style.

I agree that I would like to have had top-down castle maps. We have already provided 110-120% of what your would normally get with a book or PDF, but you would like 150%. That doesn't make the product incomplete. It may make it fall short of your expectations, but that is because your expectations are for something that is more than complete.

Why don't we just go the extra mile for good customer service and contract a cartographer to build them? The answer is that the full cost would come from our share of the revenue alone and that could very well make us lose money on the product. Custom art is expensive. Not to mention that WOTC would have to approve what is essentially a change to a product that has already been approved for content and art in print format.

[Zacchaeus]

So here's a very poor Map 3 for Strahd. Is this acceptable? Time is limited at the moment, but I will try and do more if the community think that this is of sufficient quality.

[Dennis Archer]

So here's a very poor Map 3 for Strahd. Is this acceptable? Time is limited at the moment, but I will try and do more if the community think that this is of sufficient quality.

Looks fine to me. Thanks for your time and effort on all our behalf.

[Dennis Archer]

The tokens and the player maps are sourced from the several GB of data that the publisher sends us for each product. If the publisher sells the product in PDF, then we sell it at the same price, unless the publisher asks us to sell it at a higher price. Curse of Strahd is not available in PDF at any price. You *can* buy digital maps from several of the different artists that were included in the product. These will be higher resolution but not optimized for online play and often will reflect slightly different edits than what we have done. To suggest that we sell our products at a cost significantly inflated from PDF is wrong. To compare the FG version with what you get from a PDF is also incorrect.

People are referencing maps of the castle from earlier editions. I don't know if these match with the story or not. When we asked for top-down maps for them, we were told there were none. One that is similar but from an earlier edition probably won't work and fit with the story. Similarly, there are some modules with sections that have no map what-so-ever and these were meant to run in a theater of the mind style.

I agree that I would like to have had top-down castle maps. We have already provided 110-120% of what your would normally get with a book or PDF, but you would like 150%. That doesn't make the product incomplete. It may make it fall short of your expectations, but that is because your expectations are for something that is more than complete.

Why don't we just go the extra mile for good customer service and contract a cartographer to build them? The answer is that the full cost would come from our share of the revenue alone and that could very well make us lose money on the product. Custom art is expensive. Not to mention that WOTC would have to approve what is essentially a change to a product that has already been approved for content and art in print format.

From what I can tell from comparing them, the iso maps of Castle Ravenloft are the same in both Expedition to Castle Ravenloft (the special anniversary adventure module for D&D v3.5) and in the Curse of Strahd. Likewise, the top-down map images on the WotC website for the former are identical in layout to both. FYI, the maps that the cartographer of the latter is selling are $30.

[Dennis Archer]

Can someone link to the top down maps?

Here you go: https://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20061031a

[Mask_of_winter]

Here you go: https://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ag/20061031a
These are beautiful. But there are also very small. Unless I'm missing a full size and resolution download link?

[louisjrt]

Lets sum up :
1 ) it is not FG's fault if the product they are allowed to sell is limited in its isometric PoV (that I get, although WotC should have considered this, knowing that they decided to use FG as the official online format for their product)
2 ) We won't see a combined effort to provide any official top-down maps (it's not FG's responsibility, even less their duty to pay for it, and WotC won't make a deal out of this issue since the product is good enough to be worth to buy)
3 ) this leaves us with the "community made maps" option (great work Zaccheus, keep them coming please!!!)...

so...

could we at least hope for a FG "recommendation link" to the community's maps if they ever end up being decent and complete?

[ddavison]

I forwarded that URL over to WOTC to see if these match the layout of the new Castle Ravenloft and if they have higher-res versions that they would let us share with the community. The cartographers are different and these would have been done early enough that contracts may or may not have even discussed digital distribution within their copyrights.

[drakonin]

Story so far, first sesssion. Some spoilers and I keep many details out that make campaigns unique, hopefully this helps anyone trying to get started.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CvQ4eNtza4v7smTZze5m4pSA6SpmQNOdymU89M1gUfk/edit?usp=sharing

Thank you for the comments that fix my error :)

[drakonin]

Another great session, loving this campaign! Also showing my triple monitor screenshot in all its glory as DM :) Full shot here watch out for minor spoilers! https://i.imgur.com/st9ASll.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/st9ASll.jpg